


Coda

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Slice of Life, Ultimate Talent Development Plan (Dangan Ronpa)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29314317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Maki and Kaede ride back from a visit to the orphanage together.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Harukawa Maki
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Coda

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffybun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybun/gifts).



The evening had begun deepening from buttercup to glowing orange through the windows of the bus.

Maki saw Kaede through the corners of her eyes beside her, if barely, with the strange peace in which she was wrapped morning fog-like keeping her eyelids fluttering and hanging. Even though she tried to shake it off, and tell herself that she was not so easily relaxed by music and bus rides

_ notes fell somewhat soft yet rich, and full, and full of heart, as the children began to quiet and Kaede played the afternoon into the lull awaiting dinnertime _

and that she must certainly have slept too little the previous night, or eaten too little

_ a child, little Ayase, stuffed half a sandwich into her hand; Maki looked down at it, and smiled politely, and taken an equally-polite bite - and stepped back behind Kaede, to marvel as she stooped beaming in front of Ayase, clapping her hands together lightly and asking her what her favorite songs were to sing, with the comfort and bright warmth of a familiar big sister. _

but she supposed she’d say more than anything else that it felt like she was dreaming, if ordinarily her dreams weren’t so long, and vivid, and, well…

...liable to contain any meaningful peace at all, let alone from combinations of sources old and new, making for this sense of uncanniness and strangeness that she couldn’t pretend she disliked, or wished to fight, if she wanted to - the old in the nostalgia of being surrounded by old walls, and the sounds of children laughing and crying for simple but earnest help and singing nursery rhymes, from the perspective of someone who hadn’t lived there for quite some while, feeling like a visitor to her own deepest memories.

The new source of familiar peace in Kaede, in her element, beaming brightly with the sun silhouetting her through the window at her side, feeling music out of a dusty little old piano and looking like she could laugh with joy as the kids’ voices followed suit.

Her face looked much the same now, in Maki’s view, still framed in sun, and still looking, herself, like she could laugh.

Gratitude became palpable in Maki’s chest that Kaede was happy, sitting like an anchor in the sand, and in the span of a long, slow blink, her cheek came to rest lightly on her shoulder, a hand gingerly on a sleeve, index finger and thumb lightly picking for further tangibility.

“I’m sorry I lied,” she said, low, slow, and soft.

Kaede laughed softly; Maki turned her eyes up, and under her bangs, she saw the smile angled down on her, tugged at its corners in a moment of sealing.

“...You really don’t have to be, Maki,” Kaede said, with the light wind-in-the-trees hush-around-the-edges of wistfulness. “You still trusted me with the truth in the end, right?”

Maki’s eyes closed again. She turned her head downward, meaning it mostly as a nod, out of both comprehension and acceptance.

“...And I’m glad,” Kaede continued, “that it meant that not only could I play for the kids, but that I could go back with you somewhere so important to you, right?”

...Both anchor and sand began to warm, and Maki smiled for not the first but the most open time that day.

“...Right,” she said, a whisper made just-crisp for respectful clarity.

That she had, she supposed, gone back home today only to leave with family was another strange and dreamy feeling that ached with uncanniness, but that she felt neither ability nor inclination to fight.


End file.
